Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!brutus.cs.uiuc.edu!apple!epimass!jbuck
From: jbuck@epimass.EPI.COM (Joe Buck)
Newsgroups: news.admin
Subject: Re: UUCP map for u.fra.0 (from comp.mail.maps)
Message-ID: <3451@epimass.EPI.COM>
Date: 27 Jul 89 23:11:55 GMT
References: <7106@ki4pv.uucp> <1989Jul17.085440.9421@coms.axis.fr> <2293@qiclab.UUCP> <1989Jul27.100344.8908@coms.axis.fr>
Reply-To: jbuck@epimass.EPI.COM (Joe Buck)
Organization: Entropic Processing, Inc., Cupertino, CA
Lines: 56

In article <1989Jul27.100344.8908@coms.axis.fr> philip@coms.axis.fr (Philip Peake) writes:
>No never. We don't use routing here - that is something than only USENET
>people seem to delight in doing.

Of course you "use routing", Philip.  Every network does.  When
someone attempts to mail to philip@coms.axis.fr, regardless of which
network they are on, they must at least have a router that knows how
to get to .fr.  US UUCP sites have to solve the exact same set of
problems as you do.

>REAL networks do the routing for you - when did you last put directions
>on how to reach your correspondent on a letter ?, or consult a map
>of the telephone system to route your call from one exchange to another
>to eventually reach someone ?

Modern UUCP sites in the US are registered domain members, and they
generally run software equivalent to smail to allow users to enter
addresses in the user@host.domain format.  To do this, a routing table
is required, giving routes to at least a gateway for every top-level
domain, as well as to all UUCP sites that are on the map but not yet
a member of the domain.  It's all automatic here, just like it is there.

The configuration of the US UUCP-net is constantly changing because of
rapid growth.  To keep up to date, the UUCP project posts the UUCP map
to comp.mail.maps.  The "uuhosts" program automatically rebuilds the
routing map as new postings arrive on comp.mail.maps, without manual
intervention.  It's all automatic.

>Want to simpleify your routing database ? Take all of the EUnet countries,
>and modify each entry to show it directly connected to mcvax - it will
>work perfectly - in fact, any routing information you put in will be
>zapped when it reaches europe anyway.

It's up to the person maintaining the UUCP map for France to do this
simplification.  If all your sites are domainized and no one in France
ever posts articles with a "site.UUCP" address, then the only French
map entry we need is the one for the French gateway machine.  The
other map entries allow Brian Reid to generate fancy maps, but are not
needed for mail routing.  So you should have just stopped posting the
French map (or asked the UUCP project people to stop) instead of
adding that idiotic copyright restriction, and CAUSING hundreds of US
site admins to break the law without knowing it (I never read the map,
it's all done by software).

>As to domain addresses, you are not requires to know how to reach
>any domain - BUT the entry point to your domain IS required to know.
>So, just pass any unknown domains to him - thats his job.

People maintaining UUCP maps are supposed to remove entries that are
no longer required because of domainization; the map maintainer has
screwed up here.  I'd be happy to save on the modem traffic if these
maps are no longer needed.


-- 
-- Joe Buck	jbuck@epimass.epi.com, uunet!epimass.epi.com!jbuck